Marriage of Rama and Sita

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At midnight we were awoken by our friend and his wife with a birthday cake and the biggest party popper we have ever seen. It was very special as they sang happy birthday to Christine and we shared some cake.

There is a big festival taking place in Orchha to commemorate the wedding of Rama and Sita.  The whole town is being decorated with gazebos, lights, painting etc.  Today there is a free meal for everyone attending the festival.  They are expecting in excess of 20,000 today.  

After breakfast we went for a walk around the town.  One temple had lots of ladies, some sitting and some dancing.   Another temple had lots of people preparing the food for later.  We have never seen pots of curry, dahi and bundy so big!  The whole area was a hive of activity with ladies making puri, men stirring the enormous pots of curry whilst others tipped in washing up bowl sizes of spices.  It was quite a sight.


We wandered round the town and saw gazebos going up everywhere and being decorated with flowers and lights.  We saw a temple being painted with a beautiful picture of Ganesh.


We went back home for lunch with the family.  Delicious palak aloo, chappati and veg rice. We then spent the afternoon chatting and playing.

At 7pm we joined the food queue at the temple.  there were separate entrances for men and women...however the women's entrance was closed so Christine was allowed to join the men's queue and the police, who were organising the queue kindly let us straight in.

Everyone sat in rows and food was served - aubergine curry, potato curry, chappati, riata and bundy...all very tasty. As soon as we had finished we left, as the queue outside was growing by the minute.  


We went back home and drank chai before going for a walk around the town.  It was so busy with people queuing for food and visiting the temple.


By the time we were heading to bed the queue for food was half way down the road and the noise level on the street was extremely loud!

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